Frank Girardot: Joe Cocker was iconic figure in rock ‘n’ roll history

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FILE – In this Aug. 5, 2011 file photo, British singer Joe Cocker sings the "Red Cross Gala" in Monaco. Cocker, best known for the songs, "You Are So Beautiful," and the 1980s duet "Up Where We Belong," with Jennifer Warnes, died Monday, Dec. 22, 2014 of lung cancer in Colorado. He was 70. (AP Photo/Lionel Cironneau, File)

It’s the rare performer who can take a Beatles song and make it better.

I know that sort of borrowed a bit from “Hey Jude,” but you get the picture.

“Hey Jude” aside, you could argue that Joe Cocker was that guy. He took a Beatles song and made it better. And he did it on the biggest stage the rock ‘n’ roll era ever offered, at Woodstock in 1969.

Cocker, 70, died Monday as the result of complications from lung cancer. The New York Times headline Monday described him as the “Rock Singer (who) Had Hits With Others’ Songs.”

I think that discounts the soulful nature of Cocker’s voice and performance, which I think set him apart from a whole generation of Brits more famous for their actual guitar playing and music writing than their voices and sweat-soaked air guitar performances.

“What would you do if I sang out of tune?/

“Would you stand up and walk out on me?/

“Lend me your ears and I’ll sing you a song/

“And I’ll try not to sing out of key.”

The Beatles certainly appreciated Joe Cocker.

Ringo Starr tweeted on Monday “Goodbye and God bless to Joe Cocker from one of his friends.”

Paul McCartney issued a more formal statement praising Cocker’s transformation of “With a Little Help from My Friends.”

“It was just mind-blowing, totally turned the song into a soul anthem,” McCartney said. “I was forever grateful for him for having done that.”

Cocker’s performance at Woodstock marked the end of the 1960s and ushered in the sound of the 1970s.

His performance was iconic. You didn’t see comedians doing imitations of Jimi Hendrix or Pete Townsend. John Belushi did a mean Joe Cocker, though.

Cocker once said that Belushi had to follow him around for hours before delivering his devastatingly funny and spot-on impersonation on an episode of Saturday Night Live.

Singing “Feelin’ Alright,” Cocker and Belushi took the stage in identical outfits. It made for great television.

“I knew he was going to do that,” Cocker told a British newspaper in the 1990s. “But I didn’t know that he was going to dress up in the same outfit. He followed me around all day like a school boy, so I knew something was up. When he saw that I got the white suit he went rushing off to wardrobe and got his own outfit.”

Like a lot of rock stars of the era, Cocker had well-publicized battles with booze addiction. It was an on-again, off-again thing. He won an Oscar for his duet with Jennifer Warnes for “Up Where We Belong” and you could argue that once again Cocker was the voice behind a style change in popular music. You wouldn’t be far off.

For the last couple of decades, Cocker has lived on a ranch in Colorado.

I think the best measure of a musician is the list of musicians he or she has played with, Cocker played with a ton of greats including Bob Dylan, Carlos Santana, Ray Charles and Phil Collins.

Believe me, there’s truth in that statement.

I once saw Cocker in the 1980s at a gig at the Cow Palace in San Francisco. He played with Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page and Bill Wyman and Charlie Watts of the Rolling Stones. Out of the group he was the most memorable.

Yes, that NY Times headline was very wrong. It should read “Iconic and soulful singer made others’ songs his own.”

Frank Girardot is the senior editor for the San Gabriel Valley News Group and author of “Name Dropper: Investigating the Clark Rockefeller Mystery”, available on Amazon.com for Kindle. Follow him @FrankGirardot on Twitter.com